


sip bacardi like it's your birthday

by SORD



Series: procrastination and weird clothes [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-04
Updated: 2011-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-20 02:50:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SORD/pseuds/SORD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bro does surprises, he does SURPRISES.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sip bacardi like it's your birthday

The only thing Dave's asked for this year is a visit from his little Pesterchum friend, and you can't really fight his logic - there's two weeks of Christmas vacation coming up, they've been friends for years and never met face-to-face, he's used his internet comic money to purchase an air mattress. His arguments are flawless, presented in an ironic letter to Santa that you found magnet-ed to the fridge. You don't say anything, you just put the letter in an envelope addressed to the North Pole and make the kid bring it to the post office. The two of you never speak of it again. Christmas comes and he unwraps a circuit-bent Teddy Ruxpin and a hula-hoop. Not a blink. He hides his disappointment well. This is going to be so fucking great.

(Incidentally, he gives you a CD with twelve mashups of Jesse Fredrick's classic "Everywhere You Look". You're willing to overlook the blasphemy of adulterating the "Full House" theme because these mixes are pretty god damn good. Especially considering the remixer postdates the show by almost a decade and is still a year shy of high school.)

The next day you peace out of the apartment, disappearing on one of your usual mysterious errands. You leave the traditional crisp green Benjamin in a sympathy card. "Sorry for your loss. You are in our prayers. Yours in Christ, Cal." Fucking glittery white lilies on the front, generic script font inside, perfect fucking ironic maximum sentiment from a god damn inanimate object. You deface the bill with an ironic dick in the great inventor's mouth. This card is so ironic it would never be allowed near Magneto's plastic cell. Dude would break out in a heartbeat. Got to max out the irony now because you are about to bust out a real heartwarming earnest fucking Christmas miracle all over this kid's dumb preteen face. You're Batman, and you're about to bring your Young Ward the trapeeze his dad died on. You're Superman, and you're about to give Jimmy Olsen an exclusive fucking interview and an "attaboy". Eighteen angels are about to get their wings. You are going to give this fucking kid the best gift he ever got, and this includes the gift of life.

Half an hour later you get to the airport and the plane arrives, miraculously, on time. You're in the baggage claim holding up a sign reading "Egbert" in Palatino Linotype. The dopiest, derpiest, adorablest bucktoothed little guy comes up to you and calls you - get this - "Mr. Strider", like you're a real grownup. Yes, you dig the fuck out of that. Mister Strider. Hell fucking yes.

Embracing your new title you give the kid an ironic fatherly hair muss and a "How's the old man?" You could give two shits about the old man, you know he's fine and will be fine up until you both bite the big one next year, but misters always ask after the family and you are going to bring this responsible adult thing to a previously impossible level. You're so responsible you ask if he's eaten yet, and despite his (totally delightful, utterly charmingly, wholly uncool) protests you purchase him a pile of gross chicken fingers at the airport TGI Friday's. Kid douses them in so much salt you'd think he was facing a basket of live slugs, consumes them in a single unreal chicken-oriented inhalation, then visibly flinches at the mention of dessert. You make a mental note to pick up a salt lick for this week, the kind you'd get for deer if you had a backyard. This kid is so anti-sucrose you'd think he was a concerned Christian mother and sugar was a Harry Potter book in the public school's library. Shine on, you crazy doofy diamond.

You think maybe he might be the king of irony, because despite his dessert-flinching he is the sweetest fucking kid you have ever met. You have, like, eight fresh and painful cavities in your heart right now. You should make an appointment with the heart dentist, and maybe get a heart root canal. You might need heart dentures. You'll need to start chewing heart-denture-safe gum.

You admit to yourself that this metaphor is getting pretty long in the tooth. (Nobody can deny that this is the most dad-ly of puns. You are owning this mister thing.)

You pay the check, ignoring the number the (obviously underage) waitress left on the bill. Sorry sweetheart, you're in ironic surrogate parenting mode and you're about to ramp it up. You clap a hand on your little sidekick's shoulder and say "Let's go, son" and he looks at you with the hugest worshipy mooncalf eyes made terrifying by his horrible magnifying-lens glasses. Out to the car, onto the highway, make sure you're listening to the dad-est of rock stations (oh god, Tears in Heaven, the absolute best of the worst, leave it to Clapton to write a poor man's acoustic "Candle in the Wind" about his son's death by negligence, and it is so perfect in both irony and dadliness) and you're back at the apartment building before you can say "Sixty Minutes Commercial Free Classic Rock." You've got to manhandle your charge through the front door and into the elevator because this kid will not stop gawking at every single stupid thing in front of him. You don't know how Dave managed to meet an Amish kid online. You make another mental note to not take any photos because you sure as hell don't need any fucking wide-eyed innocent little boy souls haunting your Nikon point-and-shoot.

Stepping out of the elevator you clap a hand over the kid's mouth because he can't shut up about the fucking Skymall catalogue. Yes, you've seen the World's Largest Crossword Puzzle Only $59.99. No, you don't know what a Personal Neck-Worn Air Ionizer does. Kid gets the idea and finally stops babbling, and you guide him to your front door, ring the bell, and flash-step away. Not too far though. You want to be close enough to hear this.

A few minutes later Dave opens the door. There's a pause, then a warbling, choked-up, struggling-for-cool "Sup". A squeal like air escaping the stretched-taut mouth of a balloon and the distinct thuds of a bro-hug-and-mutual-back-pound. And is that - yes, it is - TWO distinct sets of sniffles.

You fucking lose it, laughing so hard you're doubled over and gasping for breath.

You are, have always been, and will forever be the absolute best.


End file.
